Auto-rickshaw ride-hailing app Jugnoo has also jumped into the fray accusing the Bengaluru-based company of the same, while threatening to initiate legal action.Biswarup Gooptu | ET Bureau | Updated: March 24, 2016, 08:22 IST

A day after Uber, the world's most valuable startup, dragged rival ride hailing app Ola to court, accusing it of making false bookings, auto-rickshaw ride-hailing app Jugnoo has also jumped into the fray accusing the Bengaluru-based company of the same, while threatening to initiate legal action.

In an official statement released by Chandigarh-headquartered SoCoMo Technologies, which operates the Jugnoo ride-hailing app, on Wednesday, the company said, "Ola employees have been creating fake accounts over the last 10 days to book and make cancellations on Jugnoo's app leading not only to loss of revenue to Jugnoo but affecting the auto rickshaw drivers income and bonus on daily basis."

In its statement, Jugnoo has claimed that it has witnessed about 20,000 cancellations through 800 fake accounts that have been reported to occur over the last 10 days.

The company has also said that the afore-mentioned "fake" accounts were being used to to book rides through the Jugnoo platform, and then being cancelled, which, in turn, has the effect of engaging auto rickshaw drivers unnecessarily, as well as not allowing genuine customers to book rides.

"We witnessed this trend almost 10 days back when all of a sudden there was a surge in booking and the cancellation rate was equally high. We started mapping the areas where the bookings were being made from and invariably pointed at places close to Ola's office premise. We noticed this across three locations Gurgaon, Noida and Mysore where this activity was highly being employed," said Samar Singla, chief executive of Jugnoo.

Singla further added, "We have evidence to support our claims and will be more than happy to furnish the details if required. We are planning to take suitable legal action against Ola for the same but will refrain from doing so if they cease to do this."

The statement comes a day after San Francisco-headquartered Uber, which has identified India as one of its key markets outside the US, filed a lawsuit in the Delhi Hight Court, on Tuesday, against ANI Technologies, which owns and operates the Ola ride-hailing app, charging the home-grown company of indulging in making false bookings on its platform by setting up "fake rider accounts" and misleading its drivers through "fake calls" impersonating Uber.

Uber is claiming loss of Rs 50 crore because of the alleged skullduggery and asking the court for a "perpetual injunction" against Ola as well as unspecified damages.

This, however, is not the first time Jugnoo has laid charges against Ola.

In December last year, it accused the the five year-old, Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati-founded company of poaching employees and lifting its employee and driver database in Chandigarh.

Ola has raised more than $1.3 billion in funding since inception, from a list of marquee investors, including, Baillie Gifford, China's largest taxi-hailing service company Didi Kuaidi and existing investors Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global, SoftBank Group and DST Global.

In November last year, Ola closed a $500 million round of funding, a transaction that valued the company at about $5 billion.

Founded by Singla and Chinmay Agarwal in 2014, Jugnoo, till date, has reportedly raised about $10 million in funding from Paytm and Snow Leopard. The company claims to see more than 30,000 people transacting on a daily basis on its platform, and also claims to have more than 9,000 autos providing services under its brand.

The developments come at a time when Ola and Uber, and more recent entrants, such as Jugnoo, are engaged in a high-stakes battle for dominance in the Indian market, which has been playing out against a backdrop of regulatory and legal challenges placed by the government and transport authorities.